Carney, Eby announce $5 billion for B.C. housing and related infrastructure

Prime Minister Mark Carney (left) and federal Housing Minister Gregor Robertson arrive at Thursday's new conference in Vancouver. Photo by Phillip Chin /Postmedia

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B.C. Premier David Eby and Prime Minister Mark Carney announced $5 billion in spending in B.C. housing infrastructure on Thursday, including $3.2 billion over 10 years to lower municipal development charges.

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Joined by federal and provincial housing ministers Gregor Robertson and Christine Boyle, the premier and prime minister said the new funding will help spur housing development and job creation in the construction and skilled trades sectors.

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The funding is part of the $51 billion allocated nationally by Ottawa for infrastructure over the next decade through its build communities strong fund.

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“Development charges — they’re one of the biggest barriers to new homes. These are the fees that are charged to developers that help fund the infrastructure needed to support new housing, that means water mains, roads, parks, community facilities,” said Carney.

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B.C. and Ottawa will each provide half of the $3.2 billion to lower development charges. Multi-unit housing projects in “priority communities” could have development charges reduced by up to half, or to a maximum of $40,000 a development.

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Besides the money for housing, the announcement also included $1.2 billion, half from Ottawa and half from the province, to help improve health infrastructure such as emergency rooms and urgent care centres, and $50 million for priority projects in Terrace and Prince Rupert.

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B.C. Conservative housing critic Linda Hepner said the “devil will be in the details” and there’s not enough known about how either the program to reduce development charges will work.

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She also said that municipalities will need to be brought onside and compensated in exchange for lowering their development charges.

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“It’s always a problem when they’re not made whole, and I don’t know what kind of discussion the province has had on what that actually looks like given their record of how they discuss things with municipalities,” said Hepner. “My guess is it has not, it hasn’t happened at all. But I think it’s critical that municipal government knows going in how they’re expected to deliver.”

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UBC professor Tom Davidoff said it makes sense for Ottawa to subsidize the building of infrastructure that supports housing, but that both the federal government and the province will have to be careful in how they distribute money to municipalities.

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He said there is a risk that if the money is just given to municipalities, they will pocket it without really putting in the work to lower development charges and make housing more affordable.

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“There’s going to have to be some attempt by the senior governments to say if you get this money then you’ll charge less in development cost charges than you would have otherwise, but that’s complicated, and governments can do all kinds of things to grab profits from development,” said Davidoff.